Newbies or Oldies?

Friend and I went to the LLT a couple of weeks ago and we all gathered in the courtyard waiting to be let in for the event. As I looked around, I was disappointed to see a big crowd of all white faces with the exception of a Mexican couple who were manning the bar. Sheesh.

As we took a seat we smiled and nodded to two gringas who looked up and said "Newbies or oldies?" We looked blankly at them for a minute before we got it and my friend answered "Oldies". "Oh," they said, "they have to get rid of the cobblestones!" We laughed and my friend said "Nooooo. . .". But they weren't laughing. Then one of them exclaimed she has been here 18 days and bought a house in La Floresta! Thankfully we were called in for the performance.

Much as it's hard to do, I'm trying to feel welcoming to the many, many newbies with an "attitude" who are arriving daily. They know ALL about Ajijic and environs from reading Facebook. I'm trying...really. Hang in there, TR!

You are right. The extent of the "research" before moving to a foreign country that most of them do now is to join Gringos in Ajijic on FB. I'm finding they are an unimpressive lot, esp compared to some of the righteous characters I met when I first moved here and who are mostly gone now. Sniff. I miss them.

They do NO research. They just listen to each other at their frequent lunch get-togethers where they do nothing but bitch about greedy landlords, practice their awful Spanglish and stick to their own kind like ticks on a hound. Don’t confuse this bunch with facts. They don’t want to hear it. The only facts they know are from some clown who put out a video 12 years ago on YouTube about living here like Bill Gates on $600.00 a month. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Bean, not that they're mutually exclusive, but you're talking recent arrivals and not your average Trump supporter, right? It's hard to tell.

Good one, Carry......

I don't even try......they are just there.
It's like trying to teach "rocket science" to a three year old.

I had a newbie chastise me for asking her to google for info on the schedule for 16 de Septiembre. In order to get the schedule for her I would have had to google it then transfer lots of info from Chapala and Ajijic when if she wasn't so floja she could find for herself. She called me names including that I was selfish. I just asked her to be self-sufficient; hard for folks from a nanny state like the US.

Or...she coulda got all that by investing in a copy of the Guadalajara Reporter, si?

ferret wrote:LOL! How in the world did we "ancients" survive without the internet when we first arrived in Mexico?
The newbies ain't got the pioneering spirit. Not by a long shot.

Some of us oldies remember a time when there was no internet and no FB as well. Sometimes, hevvin helpus, we had to go to a LIBRARY to do research. And, just to top it off, the POTUS had to go on the radio or TV to communicate since there was no TWITTER !!! Life was HARD.

ltollefs wrote:Bean, not that they're mutually exclusive, but you're talking recent arrivals and not your average Trump supporter, right? It's hard to tell.

Will stick with "hard to tell" & "internet changed things" but still ~

Guess I'm an "inbetween-er", arriving in Summer 2009.

gringal wrote:Life was HARD.
 

...and studies, and recently a published book, have illustrated that a 'hard life' is not only beneficial but in fact necessary for the development of the human organism. Physical and emotional stressors are required to build a resilient body and mind. There's no free lunch; use it or lose: there's a library full of cliches that apply. Want a healthy child? Let'em go play in the dirt. There's nothing new here. Our mothers knew this and so did theirs. For example, the relatively recent growth in peanut and nut allergies are in large part due to overly protective parents. The same can be said for the current trend to create Safe Places and impose the giving of trigger warnings for the very delicate students at universities. These people can vote and go fight wars; can't they take a little bad news? It doesn't augur well for coming generations that they'll likely, at age 30 or 40, need someone to hold their hand to cross a street.

Not that any of this excuses those too apathetic to open a map. Maps are still a thing, aren't they?

The Coddling of the American Mind.

gringal wrote:

ferret wrote:LOL! How in the world did we "ancients" survive without the internet when we first arrived in Mexico?
The newbies ain't got the pioneering spirit. Not by a long shot.

Some of us oldies remember a time when there was no internet and no FB as well. Sometimes, hevvin helpus, we had to go to a LIBRARY to do research. And, just to top it off, the POTUS had to go on the radio or TV to communicate since there was no TWITTER !!! Life was HARD.

Some of us even remember when the POTUS could not be seen on TV....No TV set and no reception until 1951, and it was not reliable at all.
Communication? We turned the crank on the phone to get the operator. Dials came later. Telegrams always worked, and were really fast. You could send one and expect an answer in about a week from amy part of the world....well, almost any part.
Libraries were great, and the more affluent had a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica at home.

People learned stuff then. Now, just click and get instant satisfaction, but little knowledge or skill.

Will stick with "hard to tell" & "internet changed things" but still ~

There’s a huge influx and I predict a huge exodus and they will go back to wherever they came from (and it’s not just the U.S.) bleating about how they were taken advantage of. Remember my tale of the newbie who was going to slap the little bean seller girl for touching her toast? There are actually worse ones than she was.

Poor Chapala seems to be getting the biggest number. This is going to be a hard winter

Mexico has a way of grinding down expectations. May it prevail.

Careful, you've no idea what this train of thought could unleash...

MexicoPete wrote:


 Thank God, we have this and TOB.

Oh I could probably manage life without TOB.

Imagine not knowing anything more than what was published in the morning paper? Like in the olden days. About 30 years ago. I too could live without the noise.

We went to bed thinking Dewey was elected and woke up the next day and finding out later, that Truman was still the President.

The internet and these groups are completely responsible for me finding and moving to Chapala, for that so grateful... but there more then a few misconceptions. I was quite sure almost all the expats were either aging hippies, or ladies that do lunch, Everybody had a Mexican maid/gardener who was their best friend and the rest just wanted to screw you over. I only intended to be here for 18 months, for some recuperation and time to sort out past losses. Thankfully Lake Chapala is so much more and better then I thought it would be ... but those internet impressions were a little stifling :)